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There are too many short-sighted idiots who don't realize that having your neighbors child is the 2nd most important thing to having your own child educated. "

There are too many short-sighted idiots who don't realize that having your neighbors child is the 2nd most important thing to having your own child educated. "But I didn't have childen! Why should I pay taxes for schools?" is not uncommon. The answer, of course, is that we all benefit from their education, and so it isn't unreasonable for tax money to be spent to help heavily subsidize education. I'm lucky; I went to college in the early 80s, at a good state school, and it cost about $5000/year ($13K/year in today's dollars). I'm doubly lucky: my parents paid for it, so I left college penniless but without debt. It sickens me to read how much colleges are charging these days, and how even state schools are modeling themselves after for profit schools. When I went to school, most classes were taught by full time professors, many tenured, aided by TAs. Now there are so many "associate professors", i.e., getting paid minimal amounts per course hour taught without benefits. The system is rotten. Back in the 70s, Texas was awash taxes from oil money. I knew someone who attended UT Austin back then and it was a few hundred dollars per semester, as the state picked up the rest. Conservatives were conservative back then too, but they saw the value in an educated public. Now they feel like schools should be self funding.

waynecochran 7y ago
I was also lucky. Undergrad funded by my parents. Grad school funded by assistantships with most tuition waved. I got a PhD with zero debt. My father could pay for college himself back in the 50's and 60's a summer job and with a part time job during the year. His parents were poor and uneducated, yet He got a PhD with no debt. Now my kids are facing college. The landscape has changed and it is not good. I am very well paid but I make too much money for financial help, but not really enough to pay for 4 years of college for all my kids. I have saved money and have paid off my house, but I don't have another $600K set aside for college. I don't want them getting out of school with debt, so I will make sure they don't do anything stupid with large student loans. But I imagine they will all have to take on some debt. The sad thing, college is not better (actually worse in the liberal arts -- that is a different discussion) and the inflated costs are insane. The money is not going towards better professors -- I was a professor for 18 years and I didn't see a proportional growth in teaching and research. Almost all of the extra money went into the bureaucracy.

waynecochran 7y ago

I was also lucky. Undergrad funded by my parents. Grad school funded by assistantships with most tuition waved. I got a PhD with zero debt. My father could pay for college himself back in the 50's and 60's a summer job and with a part time job during the year. His parents were poor and uneducated, yet He got a PhD with no debt. Now my kids are facing college. The landscape has changed and it is not good. I am very well paid but I make too much money for financial help, but not really enough to pay for 4 years of college for all my kids. I have saved money and have paid off my house, but I don't have another $600K set aside for college. I don't want them getting out of school with debt, so I will make sure they don't do anything stupid with large student loans. But I imagine they will all have to take on some debt. The sad thing, college is not better (actually worse in the liberal arts -- that is a different discussion) and the inflated costs are insane. The money is not going towards better professors -- I was a professor for 18 years and I didn't see a proportional growth in teaching and research. Almost all of the extra money went into the bureaucracy.